Editing Geometry pipelines (section)

==History==

Hardware implementations of the geometry pipeline were introduced in the early [[Evans & Sutherland]] [[Picture System]], but perhaps received broader recognition when later applied in the broad range of graphics systems products introduced by [[Silicon Graphics]] (SGI). Initially the SGI geometry hardware performed simple [[model space]] to [[screen space]] [[viewing transformation]]s with all the lighting and shading handled by a separate hardware implementation stage. In later, much higher performance applications, such as the [[RealityEngine]], they began to be applied to perform part of the rendering support as well.

More recently, perhaps dating from the late 1990s, the hardware support required to perform the manipulation and rendering of quite complex scenes has become accessible to the consumer market. 
Companies such as [[Nvidia]] and [[AMD Graphics]] (formerly [[ATI Technologies|ATI]]) are two current leading representatives of hardware vendors in this space.  The [[GeForce]] line of [[graphics card]]s from Nvidia was the first to support full [[OpenGL]] and [[Direct3D]] hardware geometry processing in the consumer PC market, while some earlier products such as Rendition Verite incorporated hardware geometry processing through proprietary programming interfaces. On the whole, earlier graphics accelerators by [[3Dfx]], [[Matrox]] and others relied on the [[Central processing unit|CPU]] for geometry processing.

This subject matter is part of the technical foundation for modern computer graphics, and is a comprehensive topic taught at both the undergraduate and graduate levels as part of a [[computer science]] education.